condition of things in chapter ii. had been Peter's text. Peter preached
from the gift of tongues; Stephen, as I may say, from his own face then
shining like the face of an angel, and from the enmity of the Jews that
was then pressing him and threatening him. The Spirit in Stephen takes
up the moment. It was a transitional moment. It was the hour of the
shining face and of the murderous stones, of the earth's enmity and of
the still brighter, richer discoveries of grace calling to heaven. And
Stephen looks back to other histories, histories of other elect ones,
who had already filled up kindred moments in the way of God. For the
people of the earth are now withstanding God in him, as they had
withstood Him in others. As he tells them, they were always resisting
the Holy Ghost; the children and the fathers were alike in this,
throughout all generations of the nation.
Thus, in Stephen, we are called to witness another great transitional
moment. It is such a moment in the Book of the Acts, as Joseph's was in
the Book of Genesis. This links Stephen and Joseph, and gives natural
occasion to the Holy Ghost in Stephen to make reference, as He does, to
Joseph. But if the earth is refusing Stephen a place, as his brethren
had refused Joseph a place in the land of his fathers, heaven shall open
to Stephen. Grace in God shall be active as enmity in man is active--and
the eater shall yield meat. And heaven does therefore open in Acts vii.
A ray from thence finds its way out, and gently yet brightly falls upon
the face of Stephen, as the people of the earth were casting him out.
And thus sealed from heaven and for heaven, he speaks of heaven, and
heaven itself opens to him, and then the Holy Ghost Himself guides his
eye right upward to heaven, and then his spirit is received of the Lord
Jesus into heaven. All is heaven. Stephen gets the pledge or earnest of
it first, then the sight of it in its wide-opened glories, and then his
place in it with Jesus.
Nothing can exceed, while still in the body, the brightness of such a
moment. It was the Transfiguration of the Book of the Acts of the
Apostles. It was beyond the measure of the patriarch's Bethel; for here
the top of the ladder was disclosed, and Stephen was taught to know his
place to be there with the Lord, and not at the foot of it merely with
Jacob. The moment was transitional, which the time of Genesis xxviii.
was not. It had its forecasting rather in the rejected, outcast Joseph
finding his richer joys and brighter honours among the distant Gentiles
in Egypt. Or rather, if we please, Joseph's history and Stephen's
history, are, each of them in its day and its different way, the
foreshadowing and the pledge of that glory and inheritance in heaven to
which the Church, the election of this age, is called.
Simply and necessarily, therefore, are Joseph and Stephen linked
together, as we find in Acts vii. Each of them filled the same
transitional place--more vividly marked indeed in Stephen, and properly
so--but each of them filled it. All was new and heavenly, as we have
seen, with Stephen. It is not _downwards_ but _upwards_ he is commanded
to look. The angels had told the men of Galilee in chapter i. to take
their eyes off from heaven; the Spirit Himself bade Stephen, in chapter
vii., to direct his eye right up to heaven. The glory of the terrestrial
had been one, the glory of the celestial is now another. Even the gift
of Tongues had not pledged heaven to the disciples in chapter ii. There
was no transfiguration then, no face shining like the face of an angel.
The Holy Ghost was upon the assembly in Jerusalem, but the assembly
itself was not in sight of heaven as its home and inheritance. But
Stephen was on the confines of the two worlds. His body was the victim
of the enmity of man's world, his spirit was about to be received amid
the glories of Christ's world. He was rejected by his brethren, accepted
by God. All was transitional--and fitly does he look back to Joseph and
to Moses, who had been in such a place before him.
And here let me say, suggested by this allusion to Joseph and others in
Acts vii., that we are not to be surprised by this typical or parabolic
character of Old Testament histories. Quite otherwise. We ought to be
fully prepared for it; and that, too, on a very simple principle. God,
acting in these histories (we speak to His praise) acts in them (surely)
_according to Himself and His counsels_. And, consequently, these
histories become so many revelations of Himself, and of the purposes He
is bringing to pass.
An assurance of the inspiration of the narrative does not, therefore, in
the full sense, give us _God_ in the narrative. There is purpose as well
as veracity in it--there is an "ensample" as well as inspiration. "These
things happened to them for ensamples." They happened as they are
recorded. There is historic truth in them. But God brought them to pass,
in order that they might be "ensamples;" and till we find this ensample,
that is, the divine purpose in the history, we have not got God in it.
We are to go to these narratives, be they those of Joseph or any other,
very much in the mind with which the Prophet had to go to the house of
the potter. Jer. xviii. He was to see a _real work_ there; vessels made
by the hand and skill of the workman. But there was a _lesson_ in the
work, as well as a reality. There was a parable in it; for the Prophet
had to see God Himself at the wheel, as well as the potter. So in these
histories which we get in Scripture. There is reality in them, exact
truthfulness, such as inspiration secures. But there is meaning also;
and till we discover that, and learn God and His purpose in the history,
we have not really as yet gone down to the potter's house.
But this is only by the way, suggested by the use which the Spirit
Himself, through Stephen, makes of the Old Testament stories of Abraham,
Joseph, and Moses, in that marvellous chapter, Acts vii.
_Part III._ (xlii.-lvii.)--We now come to Joseph's recovery of his
father and his brethren, and its consequences.
Among the things which gave character to Joseph and his circumstances,
while he was separated from his brethren, we observed this, that he was
put into possession of those resources on which his brethren themselves
and all the world beside were to depend for preservation in the earth.
The set time for the world drawing on these resources has now arrived;
and with that, the set time for Joseph's restoration to his brethren.
Joseph is now in authority. His day of humiliation and sorrow is over.
He is at the right hand of the throne of Egypt, and the great executor
of all rule and power in the land. None can lift up hand or foot without
him. He has received the king's ring, and he rides in the second
chariot. He is the treasurer and dispenser of all the wealth of the
nation, the one who opened or shut all its storehouses at his pleasure.
He that _was_ in the pit _is_ on the throne.
This is Joseph _as_ in resurrection. I say _as_ in resurrection. For the
thing itself--resurrection from the dead--had to wait for the day of the
Son of the living God, who was to be, in His own person, alive from the
dead. But though we could not have "the very image" of this great
mystery, yet we have "shadows" of it, both in certain ordinances of the
law, and in certain histories of the elect. The dead and the living
birds of Leviticus xiv., and the two goats of Leviticus xvi., are among
such ordinances; and such historical scenes as the unbinding of Isaac
from the altar on Mount Moriah, or Jonah's deliverance from the whale's
belly, set forth the same. And so does this season in Joseph's history,
being the day of his power and authority in Egypt after his sore
troubles in the pit and in the prison. It is Joseph _as_ in
resurrection.
The Spirit of God, in chap. xlix., using Jacob as His oracle, looks back
at Joseph in this condition, and celebrates him accordingly. "Joseph is
a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over
the wall: the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and
hated him: but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were
made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." And having spoken
this of Joseph, the Spirit uses it as a figure of a Greater than Joseph;
for Jacob adds, "From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel." We
have Christ in Joseph. The risen Christ is seen as in a figure here. All
power is now in Him, in heaven and on earth. He is seated at the right
hand of the Majesty on high. His title to the resources of creation is
sure, sealed by the dignity of the place He now fills. And the resources
which He now _owns_, by-and-by He will _use_ for Israel and for the
whole earth, after the pattern of this mystery of Joseph. This we are
now about to see.
The famine begins, and the opening of Joseph's storehouses begins, at
the close of chap. xli. But the scene is then changed for a season; and
the story of the brethren's repentance and acceptance is let in, as a
kind of episode. But there is wonderful beauty in this. Because the
restitution of all things waits, as we know, for the repentance and
fulness of Israel. So that this introduction of the new matter, by way
of an episode, in chapters xlii.-xlvi., is full of beauty and meaning;
and the scene in Egypt, and the full opening of Joseph's stores for that
land and the whole earth, are resumed in due season afterwards, in
chapter xlvii. For, "what shall the receiving of them be, but life from
the dead?" asks the apostle, tracing, under the Spirit, the story of
Israel. Rom. xi. "If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and
the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their
fulness?" So that we are prepared for this repentance of the brethren
going before the full blessing of the earth.
Over this operation, this process of the softening of their hearts under
the hand of Joseph, it would be impossible not to tarry for a while. I
must therefore do so. Our own hearts would need something, if we were
not alive to this scene, to admire and enjoy it, and be thankful for it;
so full is it of the most exquisite touches of true affection, so
profound in the disclosure of the moral principles of our nature, and so
important in the sight it gives us of the workmanship of God by His
Spirit leading sinners, through conviction and the sense of their ruined
state, to repentance and newness of life.
The scene of this workmanship of God is laid in a season of need and
sorrow, as is common in the ways of the God of all grace. For He does
not refuse to be sought by us, when we have no help for it. It was thus
with the prodigal; it is thus with Joseph's brethren; and it will, I
doubt not, be found by-and-by to have been thus with a goodly portion of
those who are to praise His name in glory for ever. The prodigal had no
help for it, and back to his father and his father's house he must go.
Joseph's brethren have no help for it now, and down to Egypt and Egypt's
storehouses they must go. Mean it may be, base it may be, in the heart
of man thus to turn to God, when all else is gone. But the Lord will be
found by this base and selfish heart. He will condescend to enter, as
some one speaks, by these despised doors of nature. For twenty long
years Joseph's brethren had lived easy and prosperous, with goods laid
up, and blessings plentiful around them, and Joseph and his sorrows had
all been forgotten. For a time the prodigal had his money, the portion
of his father's goods that had fallen to him; and with his money, as
long as it lasted, he took his pleasure, his back turned upon his
father. But famine touches "the far country" and "the land of Canaan,"
and then, whether they will or not, the father's house and Joseph's
stores must be sought. See Hosea v. 15.
Thus the scene opens, and Joseph's brethren come down to Egypt to buy
food.
As soon as Joseph saw them, he knew them. He "remembered the dreams
which he had dreamed of them." But upon this he at once set himself to
the task of restoring their souls. See xlii. 9.
Strange, and yet beautiful and excellent! His dreams had merely exalted
him above them. Had he sought, therefore, simply to make good those
dreams when he thus remembered them, he might at once have revealed
himself, and, as the favoured sheaf in the field, or as the sun, the
ruling sun, in the heavens, have had them on their faces before him. But
to restore their souls, instead of exalting himself, becomes at once his
purpose. This was the counsel he took in his heart, as he surveyed the
moment when he might have realized his own greatness and their
humiliation, according to his dreams. How truly excellent and blessed is
this! There was One, in after-days, who, when He took knowledge that He
had come from God and went to God, and that the Father had put all
things into His hands, rose and girded Himself, and began to wash His
disciples' feet. The knowledge of His dignities only led Him to wait on
the need of His saints. Who can speak the character of such a moment?
But Joseph here, in the far distance, reminds me of it. "He remembered
his dreams," dreams which exalted him, and that only; and yet he turns
himself at once to the defiled feet, the guilty hearts, the unclean
consciences, of his brethren, that he might heal, and wash, and restore
them.
Strange, again I say. There was no connection between such remembrance
and such action, save as grace, divine grace, of which Joseph was the
witness, is known; save as the Jesus of John xiii. is understood.
"Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto
them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come." This
was taking them up for the good work (though the process be humbling and
painful) of restoring their souls. The conscience must be faithfully
dealt with, if anything be done. And Joseph aims at it at once. He makes
himself strange to them. He speaks to them by an interpreter, and he
speaks roughly. He must get their conscience into action, let it cost
himself in personal feeling what it may. His love, for the present, must
be firm; its hour for melting and tenderness is before it. It shall be
_gratified_ by-and-by; it must _serve_ now. In the day of their sin they
had said of him, "Behold, this dreamer cometh;" and now, in the day of
their conviction, he says of them, "Ye are spies; to see the nakedness
of the land are ye come." They had once sold their brother, when their
heart knew no pity; now, with all peremptoriness which knew no reserve,
one of themselves is taken and bound. But all this was only, in the
purpose of grace, to fix the arrow deep in the conscience, there to
spend its venom, and there to lay the sentence of death. And this is
done. When God acts, the power of the Spirit waits upon the counsel of
love. If they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction;
then He sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have
exceeded. Job xxxvi. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother," they
all say as with one conscience, "in that we saw the anguish of his soul,
when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress
come upon us."
This was something; it was much; but Joseph has still to go on with the
_service_ of love. Had he consulted his _name_ at the first, when he
remembered his dreams, he would have revealed himself at once, and stood
forth as the honoured one in the midst of his confounded, humbled
brethren. Had he now consulted his _heart_, he would have revealed
himself, and been the gratified one on the bosom of his convicted,
sorrowing brethren. But he consulted neither the one nor the other.
_Love was serving_; and the husbandman of the soul has, at times, like
the tiller of the ground, need of "long patience," and has to wait for
the latter, as for the early rain.
This was a happy and promising, because it was a _real_ beginning. But
Joseph has yet to learn whether the heart of children and of brothers
were in them, or whether they were still, as once they had been,
reckless of a brother's cries and of a father's grief. He therefore
exercises them still. Roughness and kindness, encouragements and alarms,
challenges and feasts, favours and reproaches, all are used and made to
work together. Though indeed all is much the same in the reckoning of a
guilty conscience. Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead in the
apprehensions of it. A shaken leaf is an armed host in its presence.
Kindness and roughness alike alarm. They are afraid because they are
brought into Joseph's house. They fear where no fear is. But all is
working repentance not to be repented of; and the fruit meet for this is
soon to be brought forth.
Joseph lays a plan for fully testing whether indeed a child's heart and
a brother's heart were now in them.
As they are preparing the second time to return to Canaan with food for
them and their households, Joseph's cup is put in Benjamin's sack--as we
all know, for it is a favourite story--and they set out on their
journey. But this, simple as it seems, is the crisis. Their own lips
will now have to pronounce the verdict; for the question is now about to
be put, whether they are as once they were, or whether a heart of flesh
has been given to them. Will the sorrows of Benjamin move them, as the
cries of Joseph once failed to do? Will the grief of the aged father at
home plead with their heart, as once it did not? This place, this
moment, was the field of Dothan again. They were returning, in spirit,
to the place where all their offence was committed. In the field of
Dothan, in chap. xxxvii., they had to say, Would they sacrifice their
innocent brother Joseph to their lusts, their envy, and their malice?
Here, when Benjamin is claimed as a captive because of the cup found in
his sack--claimed as one who has forfeited life and liberty to the lord
of Egypt--it is in like manner put to them to say whether they would
sacrifice him, and return on their way home, easy and careless and
satisfied.
Nothing can excel the skill of the wisdom of Joseph in thus bringing his
brethren back, morally and in spirit, to the field in Dothan. The same
question is raised here as there, and put to them solemnly. Judah, he
whom his brethren shall praise, gives this question its answer. They
were innocent, indeed, touching the cup. But this is nothing to their
consciences, and nothing on Judah's lips. Conviction loses sight of
everything but sin. Its offence is its object. "I acknowledge my
transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." The brethren might have
spoken of their innocency, and been somewhat hurt, that, after this
manner, they were again and again misunderstood and charged falsely.
They had been called spies when they were true men, and now they were
handled as common thieves, though they were honest men. They might have
said this was too bad. They could bear a good deal, injurious speeches
and hard usage, but to be dealt with thus, was something too much for
flesh and blood to put up with. But no--nothing of this--this was not
Joseph's brethren now. They had once hid their guilt under the lie which
they sent to their father, now they are willing to hide their innocency
touching the cup under the confession they make to Joseph. Judah stands
forth to represent this new mind in them. Guiltless they were indeed in
all these matters, from first to last; neither spies nor rogues; but
some twenty years ago they had been guilty of what this stranger in
Egypt (as they must have supposed) knew nothing, but which God and their
consciences knew. They may be innocent now, but they were guilty then;
and their sin, and that only, was now before them. Confession, and not
vindication, is their language. "What shall we speak?" says Judah. "How
shall we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of thy
servants."
Joseph for a moment feigns as though all this was nothing to him. This
may be their business, if they please, but Benjamin was his. Benjamin is
the guilty one, as far as the great man in Egypt is concerned; he must
remain, and the rest may take themselves home as fast as they please.
"The man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant; and as
for you, get you up in peace unto your father."
What could exceed this? I ask. Did Solomon's wisdom in settling the
question between the two harlots exceed it? Did he, in a spirit of
judgment befitting one who sat in the place of judgment, find out the
heart of a mother? and does not Joseph here, in like wisdom from God,
find out the heart of his brethren? It is all beyond admiration. The
heart is indeed laid open. After these words from Joseph, Judah draws
near, and with the bowels of a son and a brother pleads for Jacob and
for Benjamin. "The lad" and "the old man" are the burthen of his words,
for they were now the fulness of his heart. He will abide a bondman to
his lord, only let "the lad" go back to "his father." Let but the
father's heart be comforted, and Benjamin's innocency preserve him, and
Judah will be thankful, come to himself what may.
This is everything. The sequel is now reached, the sequel which had been
weighed from the beginning. The goodness of God had led to repentance.
Joseph was exalted indeed; the sheaf had risen and stood upright; but
"this was all the fruit, to take away their sin." So Christ is now
exalted, as we read, to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to
Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Acts v. 31.
And now the veil may be rent, and it shall be rent. Joseph will be made
known to his brethren.
But this was a moment hard to meet and to manage. The re-appearing of
one whom they had hated and sold, and the remembrance of whom had been
so deeply stirring their souls, might be overwhelming. He must attemper
this light to their vision, lest it prove intolerable. But love is
skilful, and has its methods and its instruments ready for occasions. "I
am Joseph," he says to his brethren; but in the same breath (as the
common word among us is) he adds, "Doth my father yet live?"
Exquisite indeed, in the way of grace, this was, and perfect in the
skilfulness of love. Joseph could have answered this question himself.
Judah's speech (the echo of which was still in his ears, for it was too
precious to allow him to part with it) had already told him, that the
father was still alive. But Joseph hastened to bring a third person into
the scene. He could not allow the servants or officers of the palace to
be present then; for this would be to expose his brethren. And yet to be
alone with himself he dreaded as enough to prove too much for them. And
therefore he must bring some one in, to share that moment with them; and
such an one, the very best of all, was he whom Joseph's word introduces.
Perfect indeed in its place this was. It calls to my mind the scene at
the well of Sychar. "I that speak unto thee am He," says the Lord to the
woman who had just by His means been discovered to herself in all her
old crimson sins. It was not merely, "I am He," but "I that speak unto
thee am He." In these words He reveals His glory. He stands before her
as Messiah, who could, as she had said, tell all things, and who had
now, as she had proved, really told all things, such things as were
terrible in the hearing of an awakened conscience. But He reveals it in
company with the sweet, condescending, inviting grace of one who was
sitting and talking with her. And this was the title of her soul to find
freedom, where she might have expected to be overwhelmed. And she did
find it.
What skilfulness in the ways of love! From its precious stores, I may
say, in well-known words--
"There sparkles forth whate'er is fit
For exigence of every hour."
We only want to trust it more, and assure ourselves of it.
And there is more of this in Joseph still.
Shortly after this he has to say again to them, "I am Joseph," and to
add to it, "whom ye sold into Egypt." But then he goes at once through a
long tale of God's purposes in all that matter, and lets them know how
important to Pharaoh, to Egypt, and to the whole world, as well as to
them and to their households, his ever having left home was about to be.
Love does not give them opportunity to occupy the time with thoughts of
themselves. Joseph crowds a multitude of other thoughts upon their
minds--and he kisses them and weeps with them.
Pharaoh's people may now, after all this, return and share the scene
with them. They can now see, in these visitors from Canaan, not Joseph's
persecutors, but his brethren. They are introduced to the palace only in
that character. As in the parable of the prodigal. The father will see
him in his misery; and, while yet in rags and hunger and shame, kiss him
and welcome him; but the household shall see him as a son at the table.
"Cause every man to go out from me," had been Joseph's word, when he was
going to make himself known to them; but now, the house of Pharaoh shall
hear that Joseph's brethren have arrived. The spirit of that blessed One
whom we learn in the Gospels breathes in all this. We are in John iv.
and in Luke xv. when in Genesis xlv.